The last day for Kathy here was Oct. 5th. Because of this my local friend and his wife wanted to spend the day with us and show us around the city. There names are James and Catherine. They have become very good friends. James has lived in the Dalian area for over 10 years. He has been a big help to me while I have been here. He knows where all the good places to eat are, talks to my driver and explains were I want to go when I need him and James is the one who has gotten me into playing badminton.
As far as what we were going to do for the day, we decided to tour around the area of Dalian called the DDA. This stands for Dalian Development Area. This is the area of Dalian that the Intel plant is actually in. James and Catherine gave us a first class tour. First we picked them up and they presented us with a present. Catherine gave Kathy a set of chop sticks from Chengdu. This is where they raise Panda bears. The chop sticks had pandas on them with 2 small Panda bears to place the chop sticks on when we are not using them. They also gave me some Sechzwan beef and some tea from Chengdu. Well, once we got underway we headed toward Golden Pebble Beach. This is a very nice area of the DDA and a very expensive place to live. It actually has two golf courses. One of them is very big and a beautiful course. The annual membership to it is about 175,000RMB a year that is about $25,000 US dollars. A little to steep for me and most of the Chinese folks. The drive was beautiful. If followed the coast and the overlooks were stunning. There is a pretty sandy beach and many natural rock formations that take on the look of a variety of things. These are in a natural Geographical park. We stopped to take some pictures.
Our day was not done. We headed toward a place that looks like a flying saucer. This is called the UFO. It is a lookout to be able to gaze upon a part of Dalian. We were able to climb to the top and get some pictures of Dalian in the background.
We couldn't have have for a better day. It was clear and warm. The weather was perfect and we could see for miles. Once we finished here we decided to get some food. Since Kathy had never had Korean food before we decided to go for some Korean BBQ. It was delicious. We tried many different things. We even had BBQ fried eel. This was actually very tasty. I never thought that either Kathy or I would ever be eating eel in China on a beautiful Fall day in October.
Now we thought our day was just about complete and thought we would head back to downtown Dalian. On the way back we decided to visit the Tea House. This was the same place that I had been once before but I knew that Kathy would enjoy it. We had some wonderful black tea which was prepared in the way only a girl who has gone to 3 years of school could prepare it. Actually we found out that the girl serving the tea was only 16 years old and was given a special arrangement by the Chinese government to attend school so early. This was because of the terrible earthquake that happened last year in Chengdu. It had killed over 60,000 people. The tea girl was from there and needed to finish school quickly in order to get a job and move back to Chengdu to help her family. That is why she was in her second year of tea school and working as an intern at the tea house. That is unusual because the legal working age in China is 18. No one younger then that is allowed to work by law. Well, she did a great job serving us and she was just a doll. As you can see by the picture, she is very cute. We had a great time sitting there and talking with James and Catherine. We ended up staying there for about 3 hours. Then we decided to leave since we had taken up the whole day of James and Catherine's. They were very gracious. We had to get back to the apartment anyway to get Kathy packed for the next day.
This was a fast and furious 10 days with Kathy here. We made many friends, went many places, and enjoyed the food and culture very much. There is of course, more to do and see in China and hopefully we will be able to enjoy more of it in the future. The next trip hopefully Brian and Kevin will be able to visit as well. It looks as though we will be planning that for around Christmas time. It will be freezing but we will figure out what to do. I will close this now with a warm thank you to all of our friends who made the trip very special for Kathy. They made the transition to China easy and pleasant and showed her their warmth and kindness. Thanks to all of you and I know Kathy thanks you as well.
From now on I will be beginning to work a lot as we will be starting our tool installations next week. This is what we have been preparing to do for the past year and a half. Busy days ahead. My blog updates will probably be boring to everyone but I will keep them up non the less. Till next time. Bye
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